Indian investor to inject $100m in ZimAlloys

Business ReporterAn Indian investor is set to inject $100 million into ferrochrome producer, ZimAlloys under an equity structure secured by judicial manager Grant Thornton and Camelsa.

Well placed sources told The Herald Business that the company had secured an Indian investor who will inject $100 million towards recapitalisation and the refurbishment of furnaces. “ZimAlloys has secured an Indian investor who has since started engaging stakeholders meaning the deal is done and sealed. The deal is now awaiting an indigenisation approval. The investor is a corporate international player with enough financial muscle to turn ZimAlloys around,” said the source.

The former Anglo American Plc ferrochrome producer which stopped operations in 2008 was placed under provisional judicial management on July 24, 2014.

The company was then put under final judicial management in November the same year after the ferrochrome producer’s debt had risen to alarming levels. It currently owes its creditors $60 million. However, bad debt-buying company, Zimbabwe Asset Management Company last year agreed to take over $21 million worth of the group’s non-performing loans which are sitting with a number of local financial institutions in a bid to clean the company’s balance sheet.

Efforts to get a comment from judicial manager Reggies Saruchera were fruitless.